CASSOPOLIS — Third and fifth grade students at Sam Adams Elementary packed the lunchroom around noon Monday, cracking jokes with their friends and nibbling at the last bits of their food.

While this may seem like an everyday occurrence at most elementary lunch rooms in the country, there was one aspect of the scene that was not universal: every child in the room had their lunch provided to them free of charge.

Sam Adams Elementary School recently received a grant to participate in the Community Eligibility Provision part of the National Breakfast and Lunch Program for the 2017-2018 school year. This new provision will allow the school to provide a free hot breakfast and lunch to each of its students.

Sam Adams Elementary is currently the only school in the Cassopolis Public School District to offer this service.

“This is just a wonderful, wonderful thing,” said Sam Adams Elementary School Principal DeeAnn Melville-Voss. “It’s wonderful to be able to provide free breakfast and lunch to all our students.”

The Cassopolis Public Schools food service department submitted an application for the grant on behalf of Sam Adams Elementary early in the summer, according to Melville-Voss. The department heard that the school had been awarded the grant last month.

The school qualified for the grant based on its number of academically disadvantaged students, with more than 75 percent of student qualifying for the National Free and Reduced Lunch program.

“We met the standards of the grant, so we were able to qualify all of our kids,” Melville-Voss said.

New Food Service Director Glen Barr said the food service department applied for the grant with the full support of Superintendent Angela Piazza after food service employees observed similar free breakfast and lunch programs in places like Watervliet and Kalamazoo.

Barr has high expectations for the grant at Sam Adams, and should the free breakfast and lunch provision prove successful, he would look into applying for the grant for other schools in the district.

“Breakfast and lunch are vital for learning and so many things,” Barr said. “It’s great that Cassopolis students can get them for free.”

With meals being provided for free, both Barr and Melville-Voss expect participation in the breakfast and lunch program to increase among students.

Melville-Voss has already begun to see this happening in student participation recordings.

“Some students have even brought in a cold lunch, but when they see what we have for hot lunch, they decide to have the hot lunch,” she said. “Our numbers are up in the eating of breakfast in the morning and at lunch time.”

Even more than increased participation, the new provision will benefit the school by likely saving the administration money, Melville-Voss said.

In previous years, the school set aside money for children who could not afford to pay for the hot lunch, yet still did not qualify for the National Free and Reduced Lunch program. Last year, the school had a deficit on that account because they gave away more lunches than the account allowed.

“We were in the red on the accounts, because there were kids eating that could pay and we were charging lunch,” Melville-Voss said. “Now, the kids don’t have to worry about that and we aren’t left with a deficit we don’t know how to pay. This [grant] is not just for a certain amount of people. It’s for everyone.”

This will no longer be a problem for the school as each student will now receive a free, grant-funded lunch.

Despite the upward tick in participation numbers and the cost saving aspects of receiving the grant, Melville-Voss said the biggest reason school leader are excited about the grant is that it benefits the children.

“All children get to eat a hot, well-balanced meal. And they get to eat it together, without judgement, so they are making friends,” she said. “But, by far, the biggest benefit is that every kids gets a free, nutritious lunch or breakfast. It’s just a wonderful thing, and I’m glad we have it here.”